Taishi Kamiya – Spectra of Air

Taishi Kamiya’s “Spectra of Air”, soon to be released on Home Normal records, is a glacial and articulate banding of melodic soundscapes from an unconventional source…

“In Christmas of 2008 I was sent some work by a Japanese artist from Will Long. He was convinced I would like it and I fell in love with the pieces immediately. The name of this rather wonderful artist was Taishi Kamiya, and the tracks sent were live improvised tracks using mostly just soprano saxophone and laptop.

Now I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a huge fan of the saxophone. I guess I just always associated it with eighties sex scenes in movies or something like that. So when Will told me his instrument of choice was the sexy saxophone, I had my reservations. But I needn’t have done because what Taishi does with the saxophone is singularly and uniquely utterly mesmerising.

I’ve always been a huge fan of intelligently done improvised work and Taishi’s was just a cut above anything else I had heard in a long time. After getting in touch, we both decided it would be great to try to make a studio produced record, as well as releasing the original ‘site-specific’ improvised work. As such, ‘Spectra of Air’ was born from these takes, formed into a beautiful work of subtle developments, and carefully woven textures. It was an enormous surprise to receive the final album, with its focus on hidden melodies and an overall rounded development, which perhaps can be overlooked in improvised work. You’ll just have to trust me that it makes a really interesting difference between this and Taishi’s ‘live’ album which we will be releasing in 2011.” – Home Normal

The opening track, ‘Calm’, has a piercing tone that gradually morphs into the mesmerising sound mentioned above. My initial impression was that the sax sound had been pitched down and sounded like a didgeridoo, but this impression faded after the track had wore on for a few minutes. The occasional bursts of hiss and electronic texture break the sound up well, and the organic tone of the sax is still faintly present; lots of mid bass hum and a really great use of panning – it seems to sit as the centrepiece and the remaining parts hover to either side.

‘Northern Nature’ has quite the delicate opening that then branches into multiple layers of drone. Pulsing melody hums away in the background, hinting at a break into conventional instrumentation that arrives in the form of chiming click and electronica. These first two tracks both break the ten minute mark, and act as a good “gateway” into the release, acclimatising you to the low temperature and occasional wind. Some lovely organ drops towards the tail end, a concession to harmony with some flittering sax lines.

I’m with Home Normal on this one – definitely a cut above.

‘Misty Morning’ is perhaps more representative of what I was expecting from the project when first reading about it – the sound still maintains the evocative tones of the previous two, but has a more reedy aspect that I found easier to identify with as a woodwind instrument. The swirling electronics and hiss act as the highlights, and provide a faintly insistent groove that almost demands some percussion to accompany it. The artist should be proud of this one.

‘Air’ is the only track to really define itself as a saxophone piece; the space in the phrasing avoids any jazz or soundtrack associations and it marks itself as a sombre, almost funereal and elegiac drone to lead into the final track.

‘Drowse’ is led in by what sounds like an aquatic field texture, from a hint at the end of the previous track. The sparse nature of the final track acts as a good closing off point, and its faintly percussive demeanour slips just out of earshot before rising midway through with some faint harmonic clatter and hiss.

Overall, the release is unexpectedly assured in every aspect. I personally found the pacing to be a bit unconventional, and requiring of a larger than usual amount of patience and attention, but it is more than worthy of the effort required to appreciate it.  It has a cold, Arctic quality that is deliberate if the cover is anything to go be; and if its intention is to be interesting and engaging it can certainly be judged to be a success. Looking forward to the live album.

“Spectra of Air” is released soon on Home Normal, in a limited run of 300 digipacks.

- Review by Alex Gibson for Fluid Radio

Track List:

01. Calm
02. Northern Nature
03. Misty Morning
04. Air
05. Drowse

www.homenormal.com
www.windtail.com
www.myspace.com/taishikamiya